_ 499 _ last, came by the sea Ormuz (sic) and from there as far as Doraque, in the same manner. His delay was largely due to head winds, which forced him to travel by land through Babylonia and the Carahamet. He travelled the whole of Turkey as far as Constantinople. From there he embarked in Castelnovo in the Gulf of Cataro and crossed to Ancona. Had he left the Babylonian route and travelled along Euphrates as far as Aleppo, and from there to Tripoli in Syria, from there crossing to Cyprus he would have made the land route very short and the sea route to Venice being very easy and he would have arrived here much sooner. He justified his choice by claiming that the route he took was much better, but he could never prove it. The fact that Salonica is there abouts or on the same route from Constantinople to Cataro, militates against him. He and his father have their homes in Salonica itself, yet he claims that he did not go that way. But who is to believe him after letters for Your Highness arrived, and from the Viceroy, from Dom Antão de Noronha, Rais Norodim and from his lawyer father? I only read the last-mentioned letter because it was open on arrival. In it, his father talks a lot about his business and discourses a great deal about India, about the
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